eBay's Android app has left a little to be desired, especially considering that their mobile web app is pretty serviceable in and of itself. Today's update brings a slightly refreshed user interface, a few bells and whistles in the alert system, and a desperately needed revamp of the checkout process. Phones and tablets running Android 2.1 or later can download the app, but don't expect the UI to scale.

The Reminders function is probably the most useful to hard-core eBay users, or at least, those hardcore users who don't already have email alerts set up. The new version allows you to set custom ringtones for buying and selling, as well as new matches for your saved search results. The payment update brings you to a credit card or PayPal payment much faster, though unfortunately it doesn't play nice with the official PayPal app.

All in all, it's just barely more useful than opening up Chrome, and appreciably faster. I still think eBay needs to take a hint from Amazon and release a separate tablet app.

Comments

http://kennydude.me/ Joe Simpson

It just needs to optimize it for tablets. This is not iOS with 2 apps, Android only needs 1.

invinciblegod

Did they improve the message interface? Previously, they had a webview of the whole webpage which also has a repond button embedded in it. If you clicked on that, you get the webpage respond. But if you clicked on the bottom respond button, you get a popup which is limited in length. What happens when you press both? WHO KNOWS?

rmkilc

The old version was creating over 1000 wakelocks a day (polling for notifications I believe). I had contacted eBay about this, and it looks like they updated the app to use push notifications. I would like to think I had influence on this update, but nonetheless, this looks like a much needed update. And yes, a tablet UI would be nice (NOT a separate tablet app, this isn't iOS).

http://twitter.com/sivkai Siv

If that's right, thank you!

http://twitter.com/RaspberryDuff Matt

Yeah I, too was seeing those wakelocks. I ended up using Greenify just recently to block it from running in the background. I'll turn off the blocking now and see how it goes.

rmkilc

I had suggested to them to make a polling interval setting, so we can change it to what we want, or use push notifications, which is the best solution. Glad to see them implement push notifications. I will be watching for excessive wakelocks though.

1334 wakelocks in 11 hours seems excessive. It wasn't a huge battery hog, but it did use 1% of the battery, and was highest on the list.

fixxmyhead

it hardly uses any battery anyways. just checked mine and it has 602 wakelocks and only used 0.1% of battery. to me thats nothing. im not OCD like the rest that need to save every half percent of battery

Gustavo Gomez

The application needed to be optimized. This is the reason verizon put it in the black list including facebook messenger. The update says the new notification is using google cloud.

IncCo

I cant believe that there still isnt an option to password protect purchases when you are already logged in..